http://www.wbay.com/Global/story.asp?S=8085898
This news article was about an 11 year old girl who had died last week due to undiagnosed and untreated diabetes. The girl had not been taken to a doctor in years! I always joke around about being a bad diabetic and not taking the best care of myself, but it is very important that everyone be aware that treating diabetes is very important. It is a disease that is managable but if it is left untreated there are some horrible complications, obviously including death.
I cannot imagine what that poor girl was going through. Symptoms of diabetes are UNPLEASANT, to say the least. You are never hungry, have to urinate very frequently, you have an awkward bad taste in your mouth,you are always thirsty but water tastes bad because of the bad taste in your mouth(so what I did was drink sugary sodas or juices which only made matters worse), you are always drowsy and lack energy, and unexplained weight loss occurs. How could she have been going through all or even just SOME of those symptoms and not be taken to a doctor? I am glad this girl's siblings have been removed from the home by social services because the negligance her parents showed is absurd. I feel sorry for this family; how tragic.
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I stumbled across your blog and found it informative and amusing. I decided to post a comment when I read your post regarding the 11yr girl that died.
I personally am not diabetic but one of my daughters was diagnosed type 1 on 11/6/07. Her blood sugar when diagnosed was 935! You read that right, it's not a typo. Before you start thinking OMG what kind of mother are you. Let me tell you a little of her story.
She was 18, working and had just started college but living at home. Yes, she was lethargic BUT she ALWAYS went in and worked 5-8hrs and never missed a shift or her classes. Granted she would come home and sleep or become a zombie on the couch but put this down to she's working alot of hours/stressed with college/etc etc etc. I was making 2 and sometimes 3 gallons of iced tea every day because she was drinking it all. I did wonder at one point if she was diabetic but dismissed it because she wasn't eating excessive amounts of food (at that time, I thought drinking AND eating alot went hand in hand). She ate frequently but not huge amount of food at anyone time. I found out later she was hungry all the time but never complained. Lastly, she had a terrible headache and nauseous. The only reason she was diagnosed was because we went to the drs for another condition that she has. They sent her to get an ultra sound the next morning and to return to the drs office for the results. Of course the drs office weighed her the night before and again the next day and less than 12hrs later she had lost 5lbs. They did blood tests (but blood sugars was NOT one of them) and sent us home because they didn't know what was wrong with her. They told her to drink lots of Gatorade because her sodium/potassium/electrolites were totally out of whack. I called the drs a couple days later because her other condition wasn't getting better and looked worse and I thought she probably needed to be seen by a dr. When we went in the next afternoon, she had lost about 8lbs from the last time we were there. After examining her the dr then told us she thought my daughter was anorexic! She thought this because she had unexplained weight loss, lethargic, loss of periods, and her complete hormone panel was off kilter (they tested everything BUT blood sugars) etc. My daughter and I didn't buy this diagnosis because lack of eating was NOT one of her issues. The dr wanted to sent us to a nutrionist counselor because we were obviously in denial. In the meantime, they took a urine sample and found
surprise surprise... glucose in the urine. Because her blood sugar was so high it wouldn't register on a meter. So they had to draw blood to get a reading and that's when we found out it was close to 1000!
My point in telling you this was... YES maybe I should have realized something was wrong sooner. However, in the 6 days leading up to her diagnosis I was in daily contact with the drs and she had been seen by 2 different drs and had her blood tested multiple times and they missed it!! The only reason my daughter didn't die is because prior to all this she had been healthy. But she came so close to going into a coma or death.
So please don't judge the family of that girl quite so harshly. My daughter is a perfect example of how easy it is to explain away or miss the classic symptoms. Even by drs people who are trained medical professionals and should have caught it long before it was.
Oh, and we never went back to those drs again.
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